by Sam Cheever
“Yes. Get on with it. Dialle’s getting worse while you play your stupid games.”
“I had some of the poison in my things.”
My stomach sank and dizziness swamped me again. I had known. But I didn’t want to admit it fully to myself. I sucked air and forced my knees to straighten, pushing away the sadness that made my stomach roil. “Let me guess, you put it into a lipstick and kissed him?”
She snorted. “Stupid halfling. Do you honestly think I’d kiss an enemy? My poisons are all in oils.”
Slayer nodded. “To tip weapons, fingernails...”
“Claws?” Brina stepped forward. She looked at Slayer. “The Puka.”
He nodded.
“Yes. The poison was in a small, blue bottle.” She glanced at me. “When you became ill I went looking for it. It was missing.”
“So someone in the Royal Court took it?”
“That was my assumption.”
I nodded, frowning. Glancing at Slayer, I asked, “Puka?”
“What were you doing during your Human Mythology classes, Astra?” Slayer shook his head.
“Sleeping. They were always the early morning classes.” I grinned. “I didn’t do mornings back then. I was determined not to join the adult world any sooner than necessary.”
“Some would you say still are,” the witch murmured.
Brina snorted and I glared at her. “Tell me about the Puka.”
“That creature who attacked me at the old woman’s house,” Brina offered. “It was a Puka.”
“Ah. Yes.” I nodded, the pieces sliding together. “As I recall, the Puka is a mythological fairy and shapeshifter that can assume all sorts of forms.”
“I’ve seen them take the form of a horse, a rabbit, a goat and a dog,” Slayer offered. He looked at me. “Didn’t you say you saw one in the Davis home, right before you got sick?”
“Yeah. I was scratched.” I frowned. “That would explain my poisoning, but not Dialle’s.”
“Could he have gotten sick from touching you?” Brina looked at Astis.
“Not likely.” Turning back to Dialle, she pointed to a line of scratches that ran from his armpit to his waistline on one side of his torso. Despite her healing efforts, the scratches remained deep and still festered. “This is probably where the poison was introduced. I’d say from gargoyle claws if I had to guess.”
“So the Puka took the form of a gargoyle?” I glanced at Slayer.
“Possibly.”
“Or someone behind the scenes is orchestrating the attacks, using these other creatures to cover for him.”
“Or her,” Slayer added, lifting an eyebrow to remind me of our earlier conversation.
And we were back to his former girlfriend, Crisanne.
“Brina, take Slayer around the Court and see if he can find this Crisanne chick. If she’s behind this I’m going to bitch slap her onto the next moon.”
She nodded and turned away. Slayer touched my arm. “Will you be okay? Maybe you should call Darma to be your backup.”
I snorted. “I’d rather take your place beating the witch.” Shaking my head, I turned back toward the bed. “I’m going to stay here with Dialle. I’ll be fine. Gerch will be here with me.”
Slayer looked at the massive Royal Soldier standing just inside the door, his thick arms crossed over a huge chest and his wide red face intense. “Okay. You know what to do if you need me.”
“Coming, halfling?”
Slayer rolled his eyes and started toward the door and the petite Royal waiting impatiently for him.
I turned back to the bed and was relieved to see that Dialle had a little more color. Astis’ magic was working.
My pocket televisual bleeped and I pulled it out of my boot where I’d stuffed it. Ralph’s handsome face swam into view. He looked worried.
I could see Darma standing behind him.
“Hey, Ralph. What’s my sister doing there? Where’s the client?”
“Astra. Mx. Diamon is missing. I’m really worried about her. I think she’s gone after her husband on her own.”
“Frunk me! Why do you think that?”
“It’s just a guess, but it’s definitely strengthened by the transmission she sent me that said, ‘I’ve found Henry and I’m going after him’.”
“Have you and Bob looked for her?”
“We went to her home and tried to follow her trail. Her scent was strong in the kitchen, but we followed it to the living room and then she just...disappeared.”
Darma shoved Ralph aside and bent toward the screen. “I’m sorry, Astra. I think she put something in my tea. I fell asleep. When I woke up she was gone.”
Aha! Vindicated! Just as I’d suspected, tea was Satan’s poison and little old ladies were his spawn.
I thought about what Ralph had said for a minute. The woman had bothered me from the first moment I’d laid eyes on her. Her aura had just been too perfect. Over the years she should have blemished it a little. And then there was Bob’s reaction to her, which he denied. “Put Bob on. I need to talk to him.”
A beat later, Bob’s face replaced Ralph’s on the small screen. “Hey, Astra? Do you think you can help us find her?”
“If you’ll be honest with me.”
He frowned. “What does that mean? I haven’t lied to you.”
“Maybe not intentionally. But you have been lying. I’ve asked you several times if there was anything different about Mx. Diamon. Each time you hesitated and then assured me there was nothing.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Tell me, Bob. What is it about her that bothers you?”
He expelled a breath and glanced off screen before answering. Then he lowered his voice. “Look, Astra, Mx. Diamon’s emotions are...I don’t know how else to say it except that they’re frazzled.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “The best way I can explain it is that humans think and feel in words. Animals think and feel in pictures. When I used my empathic powers to read her, what I got back was a mixture of pictures and words. It’s highly unusual for humans, Astra, but not unheard of. That’s all. She’s different, but not necessarily in a bad way.”
I thought about this for a minute, trying to figure out what it meant. Nothing jumped out at me. “Okay, so she’s gone to get her husband back. Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why now? She hired us to do exactly that, Bob. Why is she suddenly setting off on her own?”
“I couldn’t tell you. It bothers us too.”
“Are you sure the transmission came from her?”
“We were...but now I’m not so sure. It just doesn’t make sense.”
In the end I agreed to help them because...well...I was growing increasingly certain that the old couple’s plight was somehow tied to my and Dialle’s situation. Also, I didn’t think I could stand watching the witch run her hands all over Dialle for another minute.
I turned to Gerch and told him I’d be back. As he opened his mouth to argue I started to shimmer away. He glanced toward the bed one last time and then barked instruction at the other guards in the room and threw himself toward me, grabbing my wrist before I could completely shimmer away.
That was how I found myself locked in space and time with about three hundred pounds of devil attached to my arm.
Frunk me straight to Hades!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Unraveling the Mystery
When love must heal and danger looms, young miss will ever try,
To save her man and with his goons, set the devil’s plans awry.
We came back to sound and light in an unused sewer tunnel leading to my new office. Gerch landed hard, face down in an oily puddle in the middle of the tunnel. He came up sputtering, spraying dirty water over my pretty boots. “Hey, watch it! These are fairly new.”
Climbing to his big, flat feet, Gerch glared at me. “You always say that. If it were true, you’d have to have a hundred pairs of boots.”
&
nbsp; “And your point is?” I started down the tunnel, keeping an eye out for long-tailed, beady-eyed monsters as I went. Rats are not my favorite thing.
And there I was, with an office in a sewer. That’s what I got for hanging out with werewolves.
“Where are we going?”
I slanted him a look, grinning as he ran a huge hand over his cheeks and scraped dirty water off in a stream. Like a scaly red windshield wiper.
“To my office. Something about these cases is connected to what’s going on with me and Dialle.” I thought for a moment and then decided I could trust him. He was big, red and scaly but he’d proven his loyalty to me many times over. “And I think we’re looking for somebody at court.”
Gerch’s big head was shaking before I got the last word out. “Not a chance, my queen. No one at court would dare poison the king.”
I snorted, pulling open the double-glass doors that lead into the foyer of Werever...Whatever. “Do you really believe that, in a Royal Court filled with the most egotistical and powerful devils on Earth, nobody would be mean enough to try to take out the top guy to gain control?” I slapped my palm over the door lock and it snicked open, the three-inch-thick metal door sliding back into the wall with only a whisper of sound.
Gerch frowned, his beady black eyes almost disappearing beneath his forehead. “I am certain.” I shook my head and started toward my office. Bob and Ralph met me halfway across the foyer. Darma had been sitting in the foyer and jumped up when I arrived.
“What’s the plan?” Ralph asked.
“Can you send everything you have on the Diamon case to my information unit? I’m going to put it next to the Betty Davis files and see if I can figure out what’s going on. Today’s events seemed to tie these cases to what’s happening to me.”
At Bob’s questioning look I told him, “I’ll fill you in once I have all the files.”
Five minutes later we were standing in front of all the information we had on the two women, holographically spread out across the long wall in my office. It was like looking for a needle-thin laser beam in a light storm.
“What kind of demon did you find in Betty Davis’ home?” Ralph asked me.
“Just your typical, third circle of Hell grunt.”
“The kind the Royal Courts use for heavy labor?” Gerch glared at Bob but he didn’t back down.
“That would definitely tie the demon attack to you and Dialle,” Darma offered.
I nodded. Resting my butt on the edge of my desk, I said, “The biggest wild card we have is the Puka. What in Hades would they be doing here and what do they have to do with the Diamons and Mx. Davis?”
We all thought about that for a minute and then Gerch offered, “There’s a meeting of the Dark Council coming up. I wonder if it could have something to do with that?”
I turned to him and blinked.
Bob and Ralph blinked too.
“Holy Him!” Ralph muttered. “I’d almost forgotten about that.”
“There could definitely be a connection. Is it possible Mx. Diamon’s husband is the Puka King?”
I sneered. “Living in a sky home like an everyday Joe Martian? Doubtful.”
“Or genius,” Bob offered.
We all looked at him. “Who would think a gnarly, old human couple was special in any way? They might have been safer in that form than if they’d surrounded themselves in guards and retained their true forms.”
“If he’s the king, what does that make the female with him?” Gerch asked.
“I’m gonna take a stab in the dark here, but...queen?” Both of my eyebrows lifted in mockery of the red devil.
“There is no Puka Queen.” If he’d had an eyebrow it would have lifted. Instead his brow perked upward.
“The Puka are an all-male society, Astra.” Ralph shook his head in disgust at her ignorance. “Did you completely skip your mythology classes in school?”
Darma snorted.
I was getting pretty frunkin’ tired of that question. Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared at one and all. “Yeah, pretty much I did. So impale me on a sword. I’m an idiot.” I expelled a frustrated breath as Gerch pursed his lips and Bob and Ralph looked away, their eyes sparking with suspicious light.
“Now that we have that out of the way...” Darma said with a grin.
Gerch coughed.
I glared at my sister and she laughed.
Sensing my growing anger, Bob placed an arm across my shoulders. “They’re just teasing, Astra. Ice out.”
I took a deep breath and forced my mind back to business. “All male, huh? I guess the Puka can take female forms as well as male?”
“It would seem so,” Gerch responded.
“Does the king have a significant other?” I looked at Gerch.
He nodded. “I believe so, yes.”
Bob frowned. “Good leverage if you needed it.”
“But why take the Puka King?” Ralph asked.
We all turned to Gerch for the answer.
“The King of the Puka is set to be crowned Council Sovereign next week. As you may know, Sovereigns rule the council for one hundred years and then the next in line is crowned.”
“Who’s the next in line?”
Gerch’s beady gaze slipped away.
My stomach twisted. I was afraid I knew the answer to my own question. “Gerch?”
He crossed massive red arms over his chest, refusing to answer.
“It’s Dialle isn’t it?”
The massive soldier kept his gaze determinedly from mine, telling me everything I needed to know. I sighed, trying another tack. “What happens if the Sovereign-to-be is gacked?”
Ralph choked and Bob laughed.
“Very sensitive, Astra.” Darma shook her head.
I grinned. “Just answer the question.”
Gerch’s heavy jaw tightened. I could almost see his large, white teeth gnashing together. “The next in line takes the spot.”
“And if that person is also...gacked?” Ralph slid a laughing gaze toward me.
“That depends. Rule isn’t tied to an individual, but the individual’s court. If a king is usurped, the usurper would have a chance at becoming Sovereign.”
“Only a chance? It isn’t guaranteed.” A gray area. I hated those.
“No. The usurper would need a strong case to prove that he could hold the court he stole.”
“So the Puka could come up with a backup king?” Ralph looked confused.
“Not until they know for sure that he’s dead. And even then it’s unlikely. The Puka ascend to the throne through blood alone. The next in line for the current king is only five years old. Too young by most courts’ standards.”
“Most? I wonder who would seat a ruler younger than five?” Bob snorted.
Apparently Gerch didn’t recognize the concept of the rhetorical question. “Martians are considered adults at one year of age. Like dogs and dragons. Their leader ascends at age one and a half.”
Silence throbbed through my office for a beat as everyone digested the idea of an eighteen-month-old ruler.
“Alrighty then,” I finally said. “So we have a why, possibly a when, we need a who.” I expelled air forcefully. “And we need to figure out what killing me has to do with all of it.”
“Maybe it’s not connected.”
I glanced at Gerch. “It is. The poison proves that.”
Bob frowned. “What poison?”
I filled them in on Dialle’s poisoning and our subsequent discussion with the pain-loving witch.
“So, if the oils were taken from this witch at the Court of Dialle the Second, it would seem our culprit resides at the court. And Dialle being next in line makes it look really bad, Astra.” Ralph slid a look toward Gerch as the loyal soldier growled low in his throat.
“Stop it, Gerch. If you can’t handle the truth go back to court. I didn’t invite you here anyway.”
He glared at me but fell silent.
“Besides, I know it
isn’t Dialle. If it’s someone at the court, my money’s on Milc.”
Gerch’s beady eyes widened. “You think the advocate is attempting to usurp the king?”
I shrugged. “It’s possible.” Chewing my fingernail, I thought about another possibility. I didn’t even want to mention it. The thing was already such a huge cluster frunk. But if we were going to get to the bottom of it I knew we had to look at all options. “There is one other very remote concern. At more than one of the sites we’ve visited, Slayer’s read the magic signature of someone from his past. Someone he doesn’t trust who, though he and I haven’t had time to discuss it in detail, seems to scare him. It’s possible this woman is involved somehow. When we know more about her maybe we’ll have a better idea what’s going on.”
“Does he know how to find her?” Ralph looked worried. I knew from working with him over the past couple of years that he didn’t believe in coincidence. He often said, “Coincidence is just facts that haven’t been explained yet.”
I shook my head. “I have him searching for her now. I’ll let you know what we find.”
“So where do we go now?” Gerch’s heavy brow had lowered over his beady black eyes. I knew he dreaded what I would do next.
My grin probably didn’t make him feel any better. “To speak to the Devil’s advocate.”
~SC~
We returned to Dialle’s quarters and I sent Gerch to find Milc and bring him to me. Despite Dialle’s reaction if he woke and saw him, I called Slayer. I wasn’t going to take any chances in case the advocate decided to use his questionable powers on my body again.
When he arrived, I told Slayer to blast the advocate’s face into his ass if I started to hump his leg, or looked even slightly happy.
Slayer’s grin told me I wouldn’t have any trouble on that score.
I was happy to note that Astis was no longer with Dialle. He was sleeping but his skin was a warm, natural gold again and his chest rose and fell in even breaths. My own breath came more easily as I saw that he appeared to be recovering.
Even the claw marks on his side looked as if they were starting to heal.
I reached out and skimmed a shiny lock of midnight black hair off his cheek, tucking it behind his ear.
